Gromnir

as much as many of us snobby old timey pnp players complain 'bout d&d, it is tough to ignore the impact d&d had on any role-play game that were to follow. d&d evolved from tabletop wargaming, so is not surprising that virtual all rules for d&d were combat related in some way, shape, or form. role-play were almost a misnomer when attributed to d&d as the rules didn't genuine deal with role-play. d&d were a squad-based tactical combat game... the role-play elements were pretty much left up to player and dm discretion. even so, is very few exceptions to the Combat First kinda aspect o' most pnp rpgs... and is even more rare with regards to crpgs. does crpg needs combat? 'course not, but is unsurprising that people have come to expect good squad-based tactical combat from their crpgs. after all, the combat is pretty much an established convention o' the genre. ps:t is an intriguing example. am recalling a couple o' posts from chrisA in which he disagreed with notion that ps:t combat were lame... 'course he were kidding himself. in any event, ps:t did have combat, and a good amount o' it too... whcih ain't a shock considering ps:t reliance on d&d rules. the thing is, even for folks who thought ps:t were sooper-groovy-keen, is few that thought ps:t combat were a positive feature. maybe ps:t didn't even need combat, but the fact is that it Did have combat. if you put combat in game is it not worthwhile to make that combat engaging and challenging? Gromnir's favorite crpg is ps:t, but it would be more favorite if combat weren't teh suck. likewise, while we found kotor to be an entertaining game in spite o' its flaws, the combat were horrible. is no question we woulda' enjoyed kotor more if combat were better implemented. rpgs not need combat and Gromnir can enjoy games with lame combat. nevertheless, if developer adds combat, why not make combat... good? btw, feel free to restrain self from naming the handful o' pnp systems that don't use combat, 'cause Gromnir is already aware o' such systems. HA! Good Fun!

untrue. crouching considerable steadied sniper shots. once you put loads o' point into sniper rifles it didn't genuine matter if you were crouching or not, but near start of game crouch made much difference. 'course the sniper rifles is way overpowered anyways, and as mentioned already, crouching only helped at start o'' game. also, crouching did offer considerable cover benefits early in game when your character were relative weak... and have vague recollecting that on highest difficulty setting we got some use of crouch-type cover in the dlc. most locations offered equal cover benefits for standing as crouching, but there were a few exceptions. 'course obvious fix is to simply alter those game areas that woulda' made crouch your best option... get on rail car at new eden encouraged crouch, but not take too much imagination to replace waist high cover with larger pylons or columns or wahtever. benefits o' crouch were pretty limited, but were useful early in game, particularly for snipers. HA! Good Fun!

why can't you like 'em all? if they is good, then there is no reason for you not liking one of 'em. is tough to imagine somebody liking or hating all six equal, but am not sure why you think is beyond reason to like all 6. am not actual reading details on any origin as we wanna give da and bio a fair shot at impressing and surprising us. even so, if bio does their job well then we can expect to have six good origins, right? given fact that most people only play these games once, bio better win on each player's first choice... whichever that choice may be. otherwise they probable won't get no second or third shot at trying to dazzle or impress the average fan. heck, if first origin sucks there is a good chance even Gromnir's preternatural patience will be insufficient to compel us to try a second-choice origin. HA! Good Fun!

Yes. I can understand that. I don't go to the Bio boards so I'm not at all familiar with the crazy annoying people there, but on the boards I do go to gay romance is mostly brought up as a negative. I'm not really for or against romances in RPGs, but I guess I'm pro-gay romance in Bio games simply to oppose the homophobes who freak out about it. Someone mentioned appeasement earlier, and I'm certainly against Bioware removing gay romances or limiting romances to straight characters in an effort to appease their homophobic fans. am agreeing that if bio genuine thinks gay romance makes for a better game, then they should ignore complaints and protests and opinions to contrary. whether it is cave to gay activist or cave to homophobes not matter in least. do what is best for game. HA! Good Fun!

1) is always an issue of resource allocation am not least bit interested in ANY of the tangential romances, but the more man hours spent on gay romance means necessarily less resources is devoted to other stuff. bio romances, as far as Gromnir is concerned, is suck, but given their popularity we can understand the time and energy spent on such stuff. but other than something less than 3% of the population that is homosexual, and a handful o' teenage girls, who is genuine interested in gay romance 'tween male characters? 2) am not bothered by gay romance in games. aside from the aforementioned questionable zots allocation, it doesn't bother us in the least if there is gay romances in da or any other bio game. done right, gay ain't inherent bad, and as you mention, we can skip. no harm. what DOES bother Gromnir is that virtual every romance thread at bio becomes a Gay Rights thread... and there is a sickening number o' romance threads. reminds us o' our time in berkeley... bus fares go up or is an increase in tuition and somehow it were a conspiracy 'gainst the local gay community... which were 10%, 15%, 18%, 25% or 110% o' the population depending on which angry activist were protesting at the time. is not the gay romance that irritates Gromnir so much as it is those lobbying for gay romance. for kotor, je and me, Gromnir were largely unconcerned, but moderate supportive o' gay romance inclusion. unfortunately, the omnipresent activists complaining o' disenfranchisement has made us complete sick o' the entire subject. as we rare ever post at bio no more (under an alt o' course) the bio boards should not concern us, but much as karzak's dual-wielding thief crusade got kinda tedious after the 100th post, so to has the gay rights activism. am now anti-gay romance in bio games, simply 'cause we not wanna give positive reinforcement to arguably the most obnoxious element trolling the bio boards. "Gamestop has sold out of their Collector's Edition for the PC and XBox360. " something special come with the ce? maybe a small faux blood pack that you can use to create splatter effect on monitor screen whilst playing... makes game more "dark and mature." HA! Good Fun!

bathing weren't universal 'mongst hunters and sieges were far less common than your movies and fantasy books has led you to believe. you not think those hunters and gatherers were territorial and warlike? hunter-gatherer worries 'bout getting eaten by beasties were probable minor. on the other hand, a sprained ankle or a broken arm... or any ailment that keeps you laid up for days or weeks... far more likely to be = death than in an ag society. pre-ag affords a frighteningly tenuous grasp on life. *chuckle* the most successful hunters & gatherers were post-ag... 'cause then they could add banditry into the equation... which ain't genuine hunter-gatherer no more. Gromnir's ancestors were hunter gatherers relative recent, and we got no illusions 'bout just how harsh and uncompromising the lifestyle were. heck, pre-horse it were even worse. HA! Good Fun!

it is amazing the kinda stuff people believe. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure we get the notion that ashley and kaiden deserved less development 'cause one would invariably die. ashley and kaiden were more significant to story than any other joinable npc. saren, as an antagonist, were fated to die. death is hardly an excuse to underdevelop any character, joinable or otherwise. yeah, resources gotta figure into the equation, but as a writer/developer you has already established importance of kaiden/ashley to game and story by forcing the player to choose 'tween the two. one will die, but the other necessarily lives... but at a price. given the unique presentation o' kaiden and ashley, is all the more reason to develop further... so as to make eventual choice more meaningful. HA! Good Fun!

see edit HA! Good Fun!

"If I had to pick one pc build using one weapon to get to FO3 without dying; it would be a high endurance/high strength melee character using the shiskabob." late in game, after many levels, you can has a pretty good melee character. compared to ranged, we experienced considerable death early trying to do melee... if Gromnir were less tenacious, am doubtful we woulda stuck with it. had to rely on sneak, and if that didn't work... *shrug* is any number o' ultimate builds, but ultimate builds never really mean much to Gromnir as they typical ignore most of game leading up to ultimate build. HA! Good Fun! edit: am thinking that style of play actually has much to do with the problem we had with melee. we rare used vats for ranged, but if we got jumped by a rad scorpion or missed our kill shot with a deathstalker, we would swich to vats... pretty much quit using that sniper with the knock back as it complete ruined ranged combat. the thing is, in vats, melee... sucked. out of vats it felt like we were playing some twitchy shooter, and Gromnir has no stomach for such. is probably more style than anything else that relegated Gromnir to frequent early death, but that still raises issue o' why melee is so crap in vats.

Well, if you were going to combine small, big, and energy into one category, you'd have to redesign the remaining combat skill tiers as well. Melee and unarmed would fold together easily enough. IIRC, Josh dropped throwing and included grenades with melee. Explosives could be dropped as an independent category at that point and perhaps folded into repair (skill with finicky things), which would make repair more of a vaulable skill as well. Explosives are a lot of fun in FO3, but really doesn't seem deserving of its own category. am having no problem with reduction and streamlining, but again, the way things worked in fo3 we were already able to very easy max virtual every skill... not that you needed max to be good in most o' the skills. if you is reducing number o' skills, you better reduce skill point pool, otherwise by end of game, every character's skill point distribution is gonna look identical: 100 in everything. also, combine melee and unarmed means you got 1 sucky skill rather than 2... even with grenades. HA! Good Fun!

aristes, don't feel bad 'bout getting angry. is no question that Gromnir approach leads to some irritation from fellow posters... is why we never take no personal offense when folks does get angry. am sometimes baffled, but am never offended by folks getting riled by Gromnir. as for the reasonableness of combining energy and small... yeah, am not seeing a non-game reason for doing so. problem is from game pov you got balance issues. original fo had more skills categories, although some were redundant and... stoopid. new fo gives similar skills awards per level, but you cap at 100 and you reduce number o' skills and sudden you got every fo3 character capable o' hitting 100 in virtual every available skill... and that also seems silly. every time you reduce the pool of skills choices, but keep level skill points awards same, you makes more plausible for the fo3 wackines o' the post apoc renaissance man who is a seeming genius at everything. fo3 skills that gots obvious/immediate combat applications: Small Guns Big Guns Energy Weapons Unarmed Melee Weapons Explosives now, combine small, big and energy into one category for fo:nv-- keep everything else same. marksman becomes a no-brainer choice for Winner o' combat skills, no? melee and unarmed is already relative bad, and to use grenades and mines not seem to require much points in explosives. disarm mine takes skill, but throw grenade in combat gots low threshold. btw, as for the quick draw situation... seems like more o' old west gunslinger or tarentino movie scenario than genuine. can you imagine quick draw technique being taught to marines in basic? HA! Good Fun!

am still not seeing your point... really. attack d&d is fine with Gromnir, 'cause we does all the time. but am not seeing no plausible comparison 'tween 20' pike and fo weapons categories. am not getting why it seems strange that a choice o' small guns or big guns or energy weapons as a player's sole weapon choice should be odd or unplayable. as we mentioned, people would go nutters if they got 2/3 of way through game and found out they need lock pick to progress, so why is ok to presume multiple weapon skills is necessary, particularly when they is such broad categories? in d&d even if you choose to specialize in a weapon, (regardless of whether or not it is dagger, mace, longsword dagger or pike) you ain't consigned to fail if you use another weapon. in d&d, if you choose to specialize or focus in a particular weapon, you can be damned sure you is gonna have access to that weapon before you get 1/3 through campaign/game. etc. is not a board battle thing or a d&d defense thing... am just not seeing any parallels. "The best we could come up with (stealing a lot from gurps) was classifying the combat skills under pistols, rifles and exotics (With a host of subskills like exotic weapons: flamethrower, Exotic weapon bow etc). To further balance the whole issue we generally used "exotic weapon skill= 4/5 of rifle or pistol skill, where appropirate (like ew:crossbow uses 4/5 rifle score as base and ew:flaregun uses 4/5 pistols as base etc) and generally winged it for the truly exotic or unrelated things like bows and slings." yeah, is pretty straightforward and intuitive to go with pistols and rifles being separate, but as Gromnir mentioned and josh clarified, rl pistols is sux compared to rifles. anybody hung-up on rl is gonna choke on his own bile... and they is gonna go absolute ape if you gots pistol wielder effective dual wielding. Gromnir would be perfectly happy with 1 marksman skill, as were suggested earlier, but by doing so you has made melee skill even more fail in comparison, and you gotta come up with a bunch o' new perks too... balancing perks/feats has been pretty problematic with all such systems that adopt the perk/feat route. HA! Good Fun!

am still not getting aristes. consider the huge potential range o' weapons that is covered by small guns group. pistols and rifles and grenade launchers, etc. small guns not = 20' pike... not by a long shot. also consider that you can has at least 1 companion in group. so, why exactly should Gromnir thinks that to get through game we is gonna need significant personal expertise in more than one very broad weapon group. what is difference 'tween energy weapons and small guns anyways? all the energy weapons is pretty much same as small guns, save that they use light or plasma (HA!) rather than metal propelled by chemical explosive. laser pistol seems to fill exact same role as a .357 magnum, no? big guns IS a bit different, but again, you can has a companion so if heavy lifting is needed... also, as this is a crpg, why does Gromnir need to have big guns to get through game. imagine the hew and cry if 2/3 through game it sudden became obvious that you absolute needed lockpicking skills to get through game. is kinda antithetical to whole fallout philosophy o' free choices o' skills... but people seems to categorize combat skills different. why? in d&d, which is far better than fallout (not just a smidge better) your fighter character is gonna be proficient with all simple and martial weapons... is simply that he specializes in only a couple specific weapons. d&d makes far more sense than does fallout. am recalling characters blowing selves up in fallout games 'cause they couldn't use rocket launcher properly. HA! am still trying to figure out the big skills needed for rocket launchers. am not getting it... really. where does assumption come from that multiple weapon group specialization would/should be needed by a single fallout character? and please... no 20' pike hyperbole. HA! Good Fun!

"Is your post referring to Legion, the speculated Geth teammate in ME2? " have absolutely no idea what you is referencing. in any event, our comment were not directed at any specific me2 element. is typical that if you got a story that includes sentient machines, the Pinocchio shtick becomes inevitable... and as much as Gromnir liked Blade Runner, we not necessarily need to see what is bioware's take on the subject o' machines with soul. HA! Good Fun!

"This is like the folks who want to go through an entire DnD game using a 20' long pike. " no. no it ain't. in d&d, at the very worst, you got proficiency in simple weapons... which includes ranged and melee weapons. have never actually met somebody who thought they could/should be able to use a 20' pike in every situation, but d&d not really impose that kinda dilemma on folks in any event. a weaponmaster who has super-specialized with a falchion is still capable o' picking up a morningstar and bashing the stuffing out of some creature resistant to slashing weapons... and the same weapon master can and will use a bow to shoot at a flying enemy. old kensai maybe is examples of d&d situation in which a character is bound to one weapon, but in such a case we cannot recall a player ever having chosen a 20' pike. d&d is a squad-based tactical combat game as much as it is a rpg... so all characters is presumed to have some viable combat skills. fo, on the other hand, treats combat skills and non-combat skills as being part o' same pool. is indeed possible to complete gimp your fo character insofar as combat efficacy is concerned. but heck, let us go with the 20' pike and see where the analogy takes us. imagine a character who specializes in pike weapons... takes 4 levels o' fighter just so he can be specialized in pike. hooray. the thing is, the dm running the d&d campaign in question decides that no pike will be available in game til level 6 is attained... is simply too advanced a weapon. woulda' been nice if you got the memo, eh? maybe reverse... make pike analogous to small guns in earlier fo games. your pike worked wonderful from level 1 through 12, but then for some reason, pike not work so well no more. every creature you encounter is effective pike resistant. wtf. 'course there is a special uber pike that gots a limited number of uses... the gauss pike. hey, is your fault for not specializing in flails earlier. think you can get through whole game as a pike specialist? everybody knows that at level 13 and above you need flails. sounds pretty ridiculous, eh? d&d analogy? can't find one, 'cause d&d rules, as stoopid as they is, does not present same dilemma as does fo categories. even so, am recalling more than a few characters who played archers in d&d and they rarely used a weapon other than bow... and nobody thought that were the least bit strange or impractical. 'course fo3 renders much o' the weapon choice stuff moot. you need such a minimal number o' skill points to be effective with a given weapon, and those skill points is so plentiful that you can pretty much be good with any fallout 3 weapon. but how many of us knew that we could reach 100 in a majority o' the available skills w/o even trying? btw, we assumed d&d pre 4th edition, 'cause 4e makes it even more plausible to get through entire 20 levels using only a single weapon. HA! Good Fun!

announcing that sheppard could die was kinda weird.... possibly more weird than the Blood & Sex ads for da... which were kinda funny. ... anybody figured out why they announced sheppard's possible death? the omg potential were complete wasted. HA! Good Fun!

I'm not defending Fallout 1, it did weapon balance terribly. Why take multiple combat skills if one is good enough? Exactly! If you want to play a character who uses combat to get out of every situation, one skill shouldn't be enough to carry you! fine. makes more sense to take small guns and melee or unarmed, no? 'course that ain't the way it works in fo. and no, particularly if you got party members to assist, there is no reason why we is gonna assume that we need full length and breadth of combat skills options simply to survive. how many other crpgs make you do so? why should we assume that if we takes one combat skill then we gotta take all? you is really destroying the notion o' customization if you is gonna force onto Gromnir the need to take all combat skills. "That's just what I'm afraid of! " dunno. loads of perks/feats is a great idea... in theory. making perks/feats that is balanced is hard. am recalling that with d&d pnp there were suggestions of giving feats values... not all feats is created equal. give perk/feat points instead of simply allowing one feat choice per X levels. HA! Good Fun!

it was once the case that criticism o' bio games was okie dokie. is not so much the case anymore. biowarians will lock threads real fast if there is too much criticism. is not like olden days... which ain't necessary bad, just different. *shrug* again, ain't gonna get into details, but in point o' fact, we had hardly posted at bio for more than 6 months previous to our ban. is not the ban that decreased our interest in bio boards. actually, we posted at bio more in the 6 months after After our ban as 'posed to before. had genuine questions 'bout motb and later soz. little new info was coming out regarding da... and we had said all we needed to say 'bout me. HA! Good Fun!

"Well, maybe this is meta knowledge, but it's easy to intuit that rocket launchers and laser rifles are obviously going to be more powerful than pistols and knives and therefore be "end-game" stuff." how so? why you think laser is better than rifle? if Gromnir sees weapon options at start of game we has never played, why is we gonna assume energy is better than projectile? In point of fact, if we is using rl, am gonna assume projectile is probable better than laser. if is choosable at start, am probable gonna assume that there is good chemical projectile weapons and bad ones... and good energy and poor. as for rocket launchers... am gonna assume typical game drawbacks... rockets got slow reload and has a pretty indiscriminate area of effect... whatever. and what is the combat guy assumption for anyways? why take multiple combat skills if one is good enough? does our character gotta be skilled with knives/melee if he is a combat guy? no? but he does gotta be good with small guns, big guns and energy? that not make much sense. 'course that brings us back to earlier point... if you do need multiple combat skills, why would you ever choose big guns. small guns and energy got pretty much same ability scores being important... and even the feats is typical equal efficacious. is traditional to defend fo if you like fo, but is pretty damn tough to defend fo in this instance. HA! Good Fun!

makes much more sense. pistols v. rifles is always an intuitive and easy division for those who insist on splitting. 'course pistols v. rifles still fails with big guns, don't it? also, for those who insist on reality, pistols is fail compared to rifles. single marksman sounds good, but am thinking you need loads of feats to make genuine distinguishable. HA! Good Fun!

the saw were the first real option for big guns users in fo:t. were a goodly number of hours played before it became available. still, 'question is how to balance. create some early big gun option with ridiculous high ap cost? can turn 1 raider into hamburger, but chances are you get killed by his 2 buddies? hmmmm. a big gun that is essential nothingother than a assault rifle... but without a single shot option? hmmmm. seems relative easy to make proportional more powerful options available later so that it ain't complete outclassed by energy weapons, but low levels is a tough sell. why make your big gun character who will be relative suck at start when you can instead go small guns/energy weapon route instead? ideally, 1 skill point in any skill should be equal valuable... but that clear ain't the case with fallout. is particular irritating that in earlier fo games you had to time your spending o' skill points or you end up wasting. start fo 1 spending points in energy weapons but not small or big or any other combat skill. why not? why is doing so a bad option? 1 point = 1 point regardless if is early or late or if is small, big, energy, science or whatever. fo balance has always been terrible. "But I guess modern rpg design is all about "Well, if the player wants to coast through on one combat skill alone, let them" which I totally disagree with, but it's an angle that's been proven to work with audiences and in that case a complete Big Guns arc would make sense." of course, armed with meta knowledge... how is player 'posed to know that energy or big guns is not viable at start. how they 'posed to know when is appropriate to change? like it or not, virtual any other crpg with combat focus is more intuitive. choose swords and swords is good from hour 1 to hour 40. the swords get better, but you not find out that spending skill in swords becomes wasted 1/2 through game. is other combat games that has energy weapons and chemical projectile weapons... but rare is the skills broken up. a pistol is a pistol in most games, whether energy or chemical propellant. perhaps that not make RL sense to you, but it makes gaming sense. class pistols and rifles separate. fo does different... and it does poorly. HA! Good Fun!

That's right. Dunno what you did to get banned. Probably said something intelligent and spot on, that kind of thing doesnt pay off at all there. worthy of note: 1) banning does not preclude our ability to read the bio boards 2) banning Gromnir does not prevent us from simply creating an alt account regardless, our banning didn't change our visiting o' the bio boards. am not gonna revisit the cause o' our banning, but Gromnir alternatively defends and criticizes bioware as much now as he did previous to banning. our banning does not in any way increase or diminish the quality o' bio games... am not so petty as to allow priestly to alter our perspective of bio games. and to stay on-topic... no Pinocchio for me2. HA! Good Fun!

To me it felt natural. Like in every game, you start with peashooters and nutcrackers and move on with time to total arsenators and massive assbusters. I never even thought about it when I started with small guns and moved on to energy weapons in FO1 and big guns in FO2, it was just natural. feel natural? perhaps, but is poor balance. typical rpg you not need multiple skills to move from nutcrackers to "assbusters." your rusty sword at start o' game depends on same skill or proficiency or whatever as does the +12 hackmaster blade of god-slaying. fo is different, and a bit wacky. nevertheless, as noted earlier, the transition from small guns to energy weapons were painless and "natural" 'cause a character built for small guns were equal effective as an energy weapon combatant... weren't a particularly painful change. but where does the big guns fit in with your natural feelings? if you want big guns in fo2, then what does you start game with? is less natural to go from melee to big guns... particularly when the big guns is eventual less effectual than energy weapons. is kinda fun to reduce an enemy to bloody puddle via a big gun, but it just not make sense to build such a character, particularly as you is wilffluly gimping either early and/or late in game. HA! Good Fun!

clearly you have already forgotten the last couple of pages from this thread. our motivations is obvious. however, am a bit surprised you continue your misguided & self-appointed moderation duties. please continue your off-topic tangents, don't let me(or common courtesy) stop you. see, if you had taken that attitude from the start (w/o the sarcasm) everything woulda' been fine. as for our motivations... your lack o' comprehension in this case can hardly be attributed to Gromnir. stated several times that we is resistant to obsidian boards following the example o' bio in regards to the seeming number and ardor of gay romance posters. your willful ignorance regarding Gromnir posts and the thread in which you is posting, while amusing, is hardly believable. as for me2... am gonna be genuine disappointed if we get an anime-esque pinocchio bit. me2 were actual kind a refreshing in that the ai were bad guys and there weren't no lengthy and cliche "what is the nature of a digital soul" bit. sure, you gotta address to some degree, but would rather not substantial rehash that tired bit in yet another sci-fi offering. has been done to death. HA! Good Fun!